


Be wise enough to wonder be brave and let it go

by Ineedadrinkorsleep



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Light Angst, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ineedadrinkorsleep/pseuds/Ineedadrinkorsleep
Summary: Helen and Mark face their trauma together.
Relationships: Helen Blackthorn & Mark Blackthorn
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Be wise enough to wonder be brave and let it go

Mark had no idea what time it was when he was woken up by the sound of his daughter crying. He heard an exhausted groan beside him as Cristina moved to pull herself up. Mark put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. 

"No it's alright," he whispered, his voice hoarce from sleep. "I'll go." 

Two months ago Cristina had given birth to their first daughter. Her name was Gianna She was the biological product of Kieran and Cristina with her pointy ears and blue hair that changed with her moods, and Tina's chestnut coloured eyes and copper skin. But the trio fully considered her to be theirs. Blood was unimportant. 

Mark was half asleep as he stumbled his way down to the room they had set up Gianna's crib in. He missed Kieran and he knew Cristina did as well. Kier was currently stuck in Faerie with his royal responsibilities. Cristina and Mark were visiting the LA institute to help with a recent uptake in demon activity around the area. It was amazing to see his siblings again (minus Ty, he was in Devon visiting Kit since the two of them were now dating long distance.) However he knew it was strange for Gigi to be sleeping in an unfamiliar environment. 

Hence lots of crying. 

Mark heard his daughter's crying getting softer as he came to the doorway. He could also hear another voice, cooing to her, calming her down. As he got closer he could see it was Helen. Mark smiled at the sight of his big sister gently rocking his daughter in her arms. 

"Thank you" he whispered, trying not to startle her or wake Gianna. Helen was wearing her sleep clothes, with her hair tied back. There were also very prominent dark circles under her eyes. 

"You should get some rest" Mark said as forcefully as he could without raising his voice. "Seriously you look exhausted Len, hand her over and go back to bed." Helen just gave him a stern look. The one that she used to use when he was trying to sneak extra cookies as a kid, or the first time she caught him trying to come home past curfew after being out at a downworlder party that he was way too young for. 

The funny thing was that even though Helen had started calling Eleanor "mom" around the age of 8, Mark had never been able to do it. It had absolutely nothing to do with an attachment to his birth mother. He barely remembered her. Maybe it was because he had always had someone looking out for him since day one, and that person wasn't Nerissa or Eleanor.

And it certainly wasn't his father. 

I think you're punishing yourself, is what Helen had told him one night. You're punishing yourself for being different, so you won't let yourself get attached. 

Helen placed Gigi back in her crib and put her hands on Mark's shoulders. "Sweetheart you are more exhausted then I am" she reprimanded him gently. "You and Cristina both need help and I'm more than happy to do it." Mark put his hand over hers, gripping onto Helen to avoid passing out.

"She has Kieran too remember?" He insisted firmly. "Just because he isnt here right now doesn't mean that he's not her dad too." Helen's eyes widened. 

"Oh no! No that wasn't what I was saying at all." She said frantically. Her voice was starting to slur a little like she was drunk. She really needed to go to sleep. "I was just trying to be useful you know? Like I always used to when we were younger." 

Mark knew what she was referring to. When the twins were born, in order to help out Eleanor and their dad, Mark and Helen starting taking care of them so their parents could get more sleep. Julian was still very young, only two, so it was up to them as the older siblings to step up. 

Livvy was a relatively easy baby. She cried when she was hungry or needed changing, and then she was fine. She was pretty good at sleeping through most of the night as well. Ty on the other hand was not. When he was drinking formula from the bottle he would only ever take a little and then refuse to eat and more. This lead to him always being hungry half an hour later and as a result, not sleeping for very long. 

The family would take shifts when looking after the twins to avoid being too exhausted. But there were some nights where Ty would just refuse to sleep and nobody knew why. Eleanor wanted to go to the silent brothers, but thankfully Helen had talked her out of it. 

He's just different, she had said. It's fine, we will figure it out. 

At a certain point Andrew had just refused to try, and Helen and Mark had to step in. Unfortunately these were bad habits of Ty's that seemed to have carried over into adulthood. But at least now he could get up and feed himself at 2 in the morning.

Mark shook himself out of his stupor. "No it's ok. I'm sorry. I just worry about you Len" he murmured. Helen shot him a tired smile. "And I you, brother" she replied, slipping into a very fae way of speaking. Mark turned to look at his little girl, who was still sleeping. Thank the angel.

Thank the gods, his brain supplied. 

It was interesting thinking about the way she would grow up. It would be so different from Mark and Helen. Gianna had access to Unseelie culture through Kieran, as well as the privilege of being raised by a full blooded faerie. She was already being read fae stories (accurate ones) and sung fae lullabies. She would be taught fae languages by Kieran and Cristina mostly, because as Kieran loved to point out, he was terrible with languages. She would also be taught Spanish and English when she was older. 

She would be raised as a shadowhunter and as a faerie in a better, more understanding world that he was trying to help build. Mark couldn't help but be a little envious of her.

He turned back to Helen who hadn't left, but had sat down on the floor, bracing her back against the wall. He sat down beside her.

"Hey" he whispered roughly. "Do you ever feel like we were robbed?" 

Helen looked up at him slightly dazed. Her Blackthorn blue-green eyes were starting to glaze over. "Huh?" She muttered sleepily. Helen rubbed her eyes and cleared her throat, trying again. "What do you mean exactly?" 

Mark sighed as he slowly felt all of the thoughts and feelings he usually tried to keep buried. He really didnt want to deal with them. Because if he delt with them then he would have to acknowledge what happened, and acknowledging it made it real. 

Something that Magnus always said was that you had to go through the pain and not around it, because going through it was the only way to get over it. 

Mark took a deep breathe and looked Helen in the eye. "I mean think about it. From the moment we arrived at this institute, our father always talked about how evil and wicked and manipulative our mother was. And yes, I would argue from the sound of things he was probably right, but I was four years old and she was the only faerie I had ever known. So it seemed as if everyone around was establishing a baseline of, Faeries. Wicked. Manipulative. Cannot be trusted. 

Helen shook her head "but that's not-" Mark interrupted her. "I'm sorry but I'm not done." Helen sighed and looked to be fighting the urge to roll her eyes, but she didn't protest. "Ok fine. Go."

Mark continued. "And the thing is we were bombarded with that information all our lives. From our instructors, from our father, from our peers. So eventually I think you and I started to believe it Len! I think we started to think of ourselves as evil, and in order to not be evil we had to distance ourselves from being fae as much as possible." Mark's voice was beginning to shake.

Helen shook her head. "No I don't think it was that so much as we were trying to prove that we were real shadowhunters. Me personally, I didnt want to be considered a downworlder because I'm not, I'm a shadowhunter. " Helen explained, but her voice sounded unsure. "I didnt want to be treated differently." 

Mark chuckled humorously. "But don't you see? We are different! That is precisely my point, and everyone made us feel ashamed of that. Remember how you used to braid your hair like a faerie until girls started making fun of you and trying to pull it out? And then you started wearing your hair to cover your ears. Did you honestly expect me to believe that you preferred the style, sister?" Mark was trying to keep his voice lowered but it was becoming increasingly difficult. 

Helen was silent. There was a pause where neither sibling spoke and then Helen's defeated voice. "I don't want to talk about this Mark." He felt a pang of guilt.

"I know. Forgive me please, it was not my intention to upset you." He spoke elegantly. Helen laughed softly. "You know it's weird how much it comforts me, hearing you talk like that" she said. 

Mark smiled sadly at her. "But that's exactly my point Helen. I mean think about it? How much did we give up or refuse to persue just because we were scared? You know I've been reading far stories to Gianna and some of them are actually really incredible. There are stories about brave female warriors who go on adventures to save beautiful princesses and stories of people who couldn't decide which one of their suitors they liked best, so they just chose them all. They are stories about people like us, written for people like us." Mark could feel himself beginning to cry . 

Helen reached over silently and placed her hand on his to comfort him. She looked like she was holding back tears as well. 

"Imagine" Mark whispered brokenly, tears running down his cheeks. "Imagine what it would have been like if we read stories like those when we were younger.

Helen closed her eyes, trying to block out tears. "We were trying to keep ourselves safe" she whispered. "It was self preservation." 

"It was assimilation" Mark said firmly. "And that really wasn't fair." Helen let out a harsh breath. 

"And it didn't even do any good," Mark continued. "They still kicked us out."

Helen laughed in spite of the situation. Then let they weight of the conversation wash over them both, soaking them in despair and self pity.

Helen finally broke the silence.

"You know, she began, Magnus Bane loves to share stories about past shadowhunters in a more accurate way because the Clave's records are usually very white and straight washed, and when Aline and I mentioned potentially adopting a child from abroad, he told us a story about this one shadowhunter Ariadne Bridgestock. Apparently she was a lesbian and in a relationship with Anna Lightwood but she was also originally from India. Her parents adopted her and brought her back to England." 

Mark shrugged "So? There's nothing inherently wrong with that." Helen gave him another look. 

"Well yeah, but the problem was they didn't let her retain anything from her culture and they didn't give her the opportunity to branch out and learn more. They stripped her of all of that and basically taught her to behave like the typical white British girl." Helen readjusted her position, straightening out her back. "He wanted to make sure that if we ended up with a child who had a different cultural background, we would understand the importance of nurturing that connection" she explained.

Mark nodded "Well yes, but Aline would never do anything like that given how important her culture is to her." Helen was silent for a moment.

"Yeah I know. It's just that I'm not exactly the poster girl for self love and acceptance now am I? She said I'm a self pitying tone. 

Mark shook his head. "It's not really the same thing though Len" he reasoned.

"No I know that, but it's similar" she mumbled, tiredness seeping into her tone. "Anyways, that's why I'm so happy Gigi has you and Kieran." Helen finally stood up "Especially you. When she feels like her mom is too much of a shadowhunter to get it, and her dad is too much of a faerie to get it, she has her papa to understand her." Helen said wistfully with a smile. 

She extended her hand to Mark and pulled him to his feet. They both stared at Gianna who was moving around slightly in her sleep. "Yeah she will be fine" Helen mused softly. "She's got Cristina to teach her spanish and Kieran to teach her faerie. You can tell her stories about the wildhunt and Cristina can tell her stories about living in Mexico." Helen paused, her expression looking a little sad. "Her life is going to be so different from ours." 

Mark felt another pang in his chest as well as the boiling of anger beneath his skin. 

"How do we get past this?" He whispered. "How do we deal with this Helen? This anger?" 

Helen was silent for a moment. Mark turned to face her and noticed she was shaking slightly. Helen gulped and looked up at him.

"We can't feel sorry for ourselves. That gets us nowhere. We need to confront it and then we need to find away to move past it," she said determinedly. "We need to be brave enough to let it go. We can't change the past but what we can do is try and change the way we approach this now. I know it's hard but we can do it." Helen smiled at him "As long as we have each others backs we can get through this." 

Mark nodded. "I know. You're right. I want to keep moving forward. I want to learn more, discover more. I want to figure out who I really am." Mark spoke steadily. "The things that happened when we were younger were horrible," he felt his voice breaking again. "It's painful, but we can't just stay on our knees. We have to move on or it'll consume us." 

Mark took Helen into his arms and hugged her tightly. She sniffled lightly, wrapping her arms around him. Mark let out a sigh. 

"It's ok," he whispered. "I've got you, you're not alone."

You are not the only one.

Be wise enough to wonder, be brave and let it go.   
Nothing is everlasting.   
Have mercy on my soul.


End file.
